This invention relates generally to microscopic optical instruments, and, more particularly, to a display system which is capable of being incorporated within a microscopic optical instrument.
Microscopic optical instruments are utilized in a variety of situations. For example, such instruments are becoming commonplace not only in the scientific laboratory, but also in association with medical examinations an operations, test equipment, and, particularly in the analysis of photographs, maps or the like.
A prime example of the use of such microscopic instruments is in the field of mapping wherein cartographers utilize stereoscopic optical instruments in order to analyze photographic imagery. The cartographers must derive and extract information from a photograph and enter the information into a computer. The computer analyzes this information in accordance with predetermined input conditions and outputs appropriate data based on this input. Presently cartographers must divert their attention away from the optical instruments utilized to manually code the computer input data on special coding sheets. The coding sheets are then entered into the computer. This process, however, of diverting the attention of the operator from the optical instrument and manually coding the data is both slow and prone to errors.
To overcome this problem, data entry has now taken the form of such entry forms as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) or tactile keyboards which allow the cartographer to keep his eyes focused on the photograph through the optical instrument as he enters the data directly into the computer. Unfortunately the above solution poses another problem to the operator of the optical instrument. In order to provide highly accurate data into the entry process, feedback directly into the optical eyepiece of the microscopic optical instrument is necessary to verify the spoken or typed data entry. Heretofore, such a combination which utilizes microscopic optical instruments in conjunction with a feedback system have been either unreliable in operation or extremely cumbersome and complex in design, thereby decreasing rather than increasing the efficiency of the cartographer or operator of the optical instrument.